Muzzling the Whistleblower

The Department of Justice Moves to Punish the Doctor Who Exposed a Hospital's Coverup of its transgender medical procedures

Last May, an anonymous whistleblower sent redacted patient records to journalist Christopher Rufo. Relying on those documents, Rufo published an article demonstrating that the Texas Children’s Hospital pediatric gender clinic was continuing to dispense puberty blockers and cross sex hormones to children as young as 11, notwithstanding the hospital’s March 2022 commitment to stop all medical gender procedures for minors. That story prompted an investigation from the Texas Attorney General.

In the documents provided to Rufo, all identifying patient information had been redacted.

What was not known after the story ran in 2023 was that the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division jumped into action and opened an investigation. No, not into whether there was criminal conduct at Texas Children’s Hospital (a new whistleblower has put a spotlight on possible fraud in the way the hospital billed gender procedures for minors). Instead, the DOJ had decided to discover the identity of the whistleb…